a new road
by feintone1
Summary: betrayed by her husband Aveline goes to Hawke for comfort. but will she find more?.  disclaimer: bioware owns everything.   Authors note: this is my first piece of fanfiction. i am pretty new to the genre so reviews and feedback would be appreciated.


A new road

Chapter one: betrayal

Aveline stood at the doorway frozen solid.

Not frozen as in frozen by magic. That had happened to her once before when she and hawke had been fighting apostates on the wounded coast. This time she was frozen by no spell but frozen with shock. It was as if she had stopped while things went on around her. She had been able to brush off blood magic and qunari rage but not this. In that moment she felt like she had been stabbed by a thousand swords. She hadn't felt pain like this since she had watched Wesley breath his last. She tried to think to gather her thoughts but there where thousands. She barely even noticed Brennan gathering her clothes together and slipping past her.

She barely even heard donnic splutter his feeble attempts to explain himself and make excuses while trying to pull on his trousers. She had overheard gossip in the hanged man and in the barracks that suggested that something like this might be going on but she had just ignored it. "Utter rubbish" she had thought at the time "that would never happen". what a fool she was. A big blockheaded fool, what did varric always say "there's no smoke without fire". Well here was that fire and she was standing right in front of it. For a brief moment she hoped it was all a bad dream that just then she would wake and turn to see donnic beside her. But this was not the fade. This was real and here was donnic trying to button up his shirt as he made some pathetic little apology. She remembered how Anders had described being an abomination as like trying to scream with no sound. Well try as she might no sound could escape her lips other than the little bleat she had uttered when she opened the door.

Everything had seemed normal that day. She left at the usual time kissing donnic goodbye and promising not to back too late. Today She hawke Merrill and varric had been in lowtown clearing out a gang hideout. Usually she was home from her work with hawke a lot later then this but this gang had been weak. A dozen two bit thugs who thought they stood a chance against the champion of Kirkwall and his friends. With no other business that day she took leave of hawke and the others and had taken the short way back to the keep.

She had hoped to surprise donnic by being home early. She might even have made another attempt at cooking. Well donnic certainly had a surprise waiting for her that night. She looked at donnic again. He was fully dressed now and had even straightened out the sheets. She was able to listen to him now where before all she could hear was the odd word.

"Aveline...Love I'm so sorry. I know that isn't enough but it's the truth. I can't cover up what you just saw. I wish I could tell you this was a onetime thing but that would just be another lie. I tried to resist it but I was too dammed weak. I didn't want this to be the way you found out. I meant to tell you I wanted to tell you but... please say something love"

he moved closer to her now with his hand moving towards her face. As he touched her cheek she snapped back into action. With all of her strength she clenched her fist and gave donnic the hardest punch she had ever given anyone. He fell flat on to the bed and put his hand to his lip as it began to bleed. She held back the urge to jump on him and pummel his face into mush. "Not worth staining the sheets" was the thought in her mind. Instead she straightened herself up and turned her eyes on donnic.

"Sorry. SORRY! What are you sorry for? Don't answer I know already. Shall I give you the list? One: sorry I didn't knock. Two: sorry you can't control your base desires. Three: sorry you ever tied yourself down with marriage/ four: sorry I'm your boss and can beat you in a fight anytime. And lastly sorry you got caught!"

donnic tried to speak again but she cut him off

"I could scream and shout at you all night. I could throw plates at you swear at you give you a few more punches. We could make a whole big hysterical scene of it. But you're not worth my time. Come to think of it you never where. I certainly wasn't worth yours"

with that she took of the ring he had placed on her finger on their wedding day and threw it on the ground. She looked at the pathetic wretch with the bleeding lip that lay on what only the night before had been their bed. He could not return her gaze and buried his head in his hands.

"Can't even look you're so called love in the eye can you? Pathetic. If there is a slight spark of honour in you will quit the guards. Quit Kirkwall quit the bloody free marches and take your little hussy with you."

She turned to leave but stopped herself.

"better say this now" she thought.

She faced donnic again. At least this time he was brave enough to look her in the face.

"know this donnic. Whatever we may have felt for each other whatever vows we made whatever we shared is gone. You have killed all of it. Forget this last year as I shall do. Don't ever expect to see me again let alone hope for me to forgive you. From now on whatever you choose to do or decide to be you will be nothing to me. Goodbye Donnic. Live as you choose"

with that she left the room leaving donnic alone to tend to his lip.

She stormed out of her and Donnic's quarters and walked right through her office. She didn't even look at her armour and shield that stood on the shelf. She had always changed out of her armour in her office so that when she entered their private quarters she was Aveline the wife rather than Aveline the guard captain. The last time she had left her office by the front door without her armour and unarmed was on her wedding day. Thankfully the barracks where empty as all the guards not on shifts where in their bunks. She marched up the stairs into the main hall of the keep. All the nobles and clerks had left by now and the guards that had just started their nightshift where lighting the torches. They and a group of templar's huddled in a corner where all that saw her head straight to the main door. Without her even having to ask the guards standing there opened it for her. As she stormed out of the main door they turned to look at each other.

"Guess the rumours where true" whispered one to the other.

"Bastard!" snapped the guard "ill cut of his balls".

"She may have beaten you to it. Best we pretend we didn't see anything".

"But what if she asks if we knew about donnic?". "We say nothing. Understand?" They both nodded in agreement and resumed their duties

She came out the main door and down the steps until she was in the main courtyard that leads straight out into Hightown. Once she was there she stopped dead in her tracks.

Where was she going? What was she doing? What had just happened? Her mind was racing at a thousand miles per hour and her insides where churning up. One second she felt like running back to the bedroom with her sword in hand and running the blighter through. Next thing she wanted to run up and forgive him and plead him to forgive her. Then she felt like running to the docks and taking the next ship to Ferelden or antiva or the bloody anderfels. Or she could find some poor tramps and take it out on them. That would be rich wouldn't it? the captain of the guard beating a poor tramp to death on a whim.

She paced up and down the stony path trying to think to put it all together. Was she sure she could just forget that last year? Just cut Donnic out of her life? She thought back to the day he came into her office after her feeble attempt at courtship. That whole year passed through her mind. The wedding where all her friends had been there and Sebastian had performed the ceremony. She remembered the honeymoon where they had hardly left the bedroom in all those three weeks in Orlais. Their first anniversary when he had given her a bronze tulip. All the laughter tears and nights of joy they had spent together flooded back to her in one moment. How could she sweep it all away?

Yet deep down she knew she had to. None of it had mattered whatever she felt at the time. Was the man she had just punched in the lip been the same man who had read his own vows to her at the altar? Yes he was. How foolish had she been not to realise it sooner. Maybe she had been wilfully blind. Or he had been very clever. Was it her fault somehow? Had she not been as attentive as she should have been? If he had had doubts at anytime why could he not come to her? Was mixing professional and personal lives impossible?

She needed answers to some of these questions. But she knew she wouldn't find any standing on her own in the middle of Hightown late at night. She was unarmed and alone. Despite her guards and Hawke's best efforts to keep hightown safe at night she knew trouble could spark up anytime.

She needed to go somewhere. At least she had friends in Kirkwall who she could talk to about this. Maybe she could start to set it straight. Sebastian was out of Kirkwall for the week on chantry business. She could try the hanged man. But she wasn't in the mood for varric's wisecracks and tall tales however well intentioned and she certainly wasn't in the mood for any of Isabella's antics. And you couldn't pay her to sleep on one of the beds at the hanged man even the one in varric's suite. If she went to Anders and told him about all this she might cause justice to show itself. An abomination charging into her barracks to kill a guardsman would be pretty hard to hide from the knight commander. Merrill would at least be her usual sweet self about it. But she wouldn't understand it any of it and would probably start rambling. Then she would say something she thought was wrong and spend an hour saying sorry.

Fenris would perhaps offer some wisdom and insight. For a man who had never learnt how to read he had a great deal of both. But he had been preoccupied with some secret business of his own lately. Besides he may be drunk on aggregio again or just brooding. Then she remembered Fenris had talked to her about him and Donnic's weekly diamondback games. Rage flared up in her. Had he known or had suspicions about all this and said nothing! Did he make some promise to Donnic to keep it a secret between them? She was ready to head to his house and kick the door down before she stopped herself. She was being a bloody fool. She knew Fenris would have told her if he suspected a thing. He owed her too much and besides he was terrible at keeping secrets. If he had known he would more than likely have forced Donnic to confess. He had his ways.

Who then could she turn to?

"Of course" she said to herself. How could she be such a bloody fool? There was really only one person in Kirkwall who could help her. He would listen as she poured her heart out. He would give solid advice and even make her laugh. She knew he would be home. She gathered herself together and headed towards her destination.


End file.
